I am scared to death.

We decided a couple of weeks ago to pull our kids out of public school and bring 'em home.  Finally.
I have wanted to home school since my first one was a baby.  My husband always said no, for many different reasons.  Long story short- he changed his mind.  And it surprised the crap out of me. 

We have three kids: Aimee, 13; Ann 11 and John 8.  They've always gone to public school here in our small-ish southeastern New Mexico town.  Aimee started K, had a great teacher. Ann, two years later, had the same great K teacher.  John, three years later, had yet the same.  And the pattern continued on up.  John is in 2nd right now and I know this teacher like a best friend.  Well, not really, but we are very familiar. 

Aimee is 7th grade.  That's junior high! It was scarier for me than for her! At the beginning, anyway. She has been so bored this year and I could see it.  The child sailed through elementary without so much as a B and I was just sure Junior High was going to eat her lunch.  She hasn't had a bit of homework all year long, hasn't done any major projects to speak of, hasn't had to write a single book report.  She can do so much more.  She hates seeing the bullying that goes on, she hates being in classes with disrespectful kids who don't even want to be at school. 

Ann is 5th grade.  She is a horse of a different color.  She marches to her own drum.  She is a middle child.  She is unique, difficult, artistic, imaginative, stubborn, silly, and lots of times smelly.  She is easily influenced by TV and magazines, and other girls.  I don't want her to go to Junior high.  I don't want her in that den of lions.  At all.  Ever.  Oh, I know she'll grow up and a lion's den will just be waiting for her.  Yeah, but I want to equip her for it my way, rather, God's way. 

John.  John.  Oh, John.   He would probably do just fine in pubic school from here on out. The kid retains information, and can repeat it to me, like Rainman. He, a 2nd grader, reads on a 4th grade level I think, and he L.O.V.E.S to read. He can be so sweet and loving and helpful, he an obey directions impeccably, he can sit still and listen. Most of the time, however, he chooses not to.  John lives on his own planet, I like to say.  The planet where it's ok to do somersaults every where you go.  Everywhere.  Where every peice of furniture is a trampoline.  And everything is covered in biscuits and gravy.

So, we have been picking our kids up from school for all these years and asking about thier day.  It was never very interesting.  Lots of times the answer was, "We watched a movie." One time, the answer was, "I got beat up in the bathroom today."  We just kept thinking, this just isn't right.  We were not satisfied at all.  But we realized we would never be able to change "the schools".

I had begun to realize how much of thier life I was missing, as well. I hated not being with my kids.  It hadn't always been that way- I was the mom who did the happy dance when the last one went to kindergarten and I got a whole day to myself.  But the fact that they were getting older and I was missing most of it had really just hit me with the force of a ten ton truck. 

We discussed sending them to nearby towns, but I didn't want to spend hours and hours a day in thhe car!  We started looking at a private school that is going to open up here, but even though it seemed like exactly the answer- faith-based, university model, ran by people we know and trust- it was going to be just simply too expensive.  We hadn't really talked about it in a few weeks, and I had resigned myself to continuing on the way we were going, and trying to make up for what the school wasnt doing.  More library books, more time on math, call the junior college for a tutor if need be, buy a Bible curriculum and do it at home....   (How on earth was I supposed to try to teach them anything else when they were already wiped out everyday from spending 7 hours at school? The last thing they would want to do is listen to me try to teach them anything else.)

Then at Easter Lunch at my mom's, my sister asked, "So, have y'all decided anything on that private school?" As I was about to answer her with the above, my husband interupted with, "I think what we are going to do is just pull them out and homeschool." 

We both looked at him with the same expression.  Shock and awe. (She has homeshcooled since day one with her boys.)  So, on the drive home, we talked about it, and by the time we got home, in the space of two hours, we had decided it was for sure.  We prayed a lot that night, and the next day told our kids.  They all said "Finally!"

So since that night, I have been doing nothing but surfing the web, texting my sister, and reading every book on homeschool that our library has.  (A good friend had read my facebook post "Homeschool is very very very close on our horizon." and sent me a text pic of the shelf in the library she just happened to glance up and see filled with homeschool titles.  I hadn't even thought to look in the library.  duh.)

Two days ago, I finally ordered material. 

I am scared to death.